6k petition White House website for Ga.’s secession

6k petition White House website for Ga.’s secession

Only days after President Barack Obama won a second term in office, a smattering of secessionists across the south have hit his administration’s website with petitions to allow withdrawal from the union.

The Obama White House expanded its digital footprint in September to include a function on its website whereby citizens could more easily petition their government “to take action on a range of issues.” Any petition that crests the 25,000-signer mark within 30 days is guaranteed a response by aides to the president.

But soon those terms may mean the president’s staff addressing secession petitions from at least 20 states, Georgia among them.

Two similar petitions asking the federal government to “peacefully grant the State of Georgia to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own government” have accumulated some 6,200 cumulative signatures, though each are well below the threshold for a response. (See petitions one and two here.)

The language of the Peach State proposal mirrors the first secession petition, one lobbying for Louisiana’s withdrawal, that appeared on the White House’s website.

That effort has amassed more than 13,000 signatures, though the most popular of the bunch, from Texas, has gathered north of 17,000 signatures.

– James Richardson

politicalEconomist

A non-random sample of 6,000 (if they are all unique) out of 9,815,210.